


Sincerity Will Overshadow Transgressions (or SWOT)

by Stoic_piece_of_garbage



Series: Dulce et decorum est, pro nihil mori [1]
Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: #college au, #implied drug use, #this one will be just, But it's more of an extended backstory?, Gen, Implied substance abuse, and i don't care, anyway this is their stupid origin story, computers are already pretty advanced but nobody knows what to do with them, just like there are touchscreens in the 80's (fnaf 2) but no internet, like sit com level ridiculous, stupid, technology in the fnaf-verse is more advanced but in completely random places, the author has no idea how drugs actually work but boi it's not going to stop them, will add more tags later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29927064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stoic_piece_of_garbage/pseuds/Stoic_piece_of_garbage
Summary: October 1967, Salt Lake City, University of Utah (aka "the U")Forced to work together on an entry-level project, an insufferable British immigrant with a romantic martyr complex and a barely functioning albeit very creative robotics major, form an unlikely alliance, after engaging in some good, old-fashioned chaos and becoming an object of public disgrace.Or, my personal headcanon about how there is no way the idea for those fucking restaurants WASN'T the result of some drug-induced vision. It's the sixties, let them have it guys
Relationships: William Afton | Dave Miller & Henry Emily
Series: Dulce et decorum est, pro nihil mori [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2177154
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	Sincerity Will Overshadow Transgressions (or SWOT)

\- so in conclusion, the preliminary phase plays a crucial role **when** determining the strategic position of a given project, be it a business enterprise or any other organization, although I can already see from those smug looks on your faces, that most of **you** are not interested in venturing into the fascinating world of non-profit charities and **only** hope to find a way to hop onto that coveted gravy train, which is a shame considering that from the point of view of taxation-"

  


_How can someone use so many words and yet say so little?_

  


Well, to be fair, it wasn't only about the number of words used. There was also the fact that every single one on them was delivered with the same flat intonation by a cranky business management professor, who unfortunately belonged to that group of people, who cannot tell the difference between being charismatic and speaking (more or less) from the diaphragm while putting emphasis on random words. This type of rhetorical technique is widely considered to be somehow even worse than soft-spoken speeches which bore the listeners to death because while those can, at the very least, serve as some sort of a low-grade lullaby, the former is more akin to the sound of a PCV pipe being banged repeatedly against a radiator. 

  


Yes, it was a good comparison. Concrete, easy to visualize with a slightly sarcastic air to it, but not so much that it could be considered a mindless mockery.

  


Except for the "PCV" part. There was something oddly pretentious about specifying the material of the metaphorical pipe to that extent. It could have just as well been a metal pipe, or just your average, run-of-the-mill plastic one, there's really no need to overcomplicate that. 

  


William looked at his notes up to that point. Without thinking he had been writing every "strategic", every "project" and "enterprise" like a thoughtless sheep as if the knowledge passed in this useless course required explaining anything. How pathetic. Why should he even give this idiotic subject the privilege of full sentences anyway?

He took his pen and ruler and began meticulously crossing out all his previous writing. He could see in the corner of his vision that someone sitting on his right was looking at him with a questioning expression. Clearly a mindless follower of the system. Boring, predictable, unable to comprehend the absurdity of their condition. 

William smiled ever so slightly and started writing the version of his notes, that actually reflected the nature of this soul-draining lecture.

  


**PLANNING= CRUCIAL**

**CHARITY= GOOD**

  


Yes, that will...show them.

  


Just to make sure the message wouldn't come off as him being simply ignorant he added:

_Errors like straws, upon the surface flow;_

_He who would search for pearls must dive below._

_\- J. Dryden_

  


Perfect.

Despite the obviously profound nature of his one-man manifesto, the professor was still talking and pacing from one side of the giant blackboard to another, his steps small yet strangely aggressive, short neck craned, dilated pupils glaring angrily from underneath bushy grey eyebrows. Some said his general demeanor and stiffness of movement were just a result of his worsening cataplexy, but if you asked anyone who didn't have the mental strength to explore his fascinating medical history, they would just say that looked like an annoyed bald eagle.

"As you can probably deduce, there are several unique general methods through which such positions can be calculated. Thanks to our...good friends at Stanford Research Insitute I will be able to share with you today a new **item** they've been working on" He said, struggling to pick up a piece of chalk from the skillet "I think it's a neat little method, although if the asked for **my** opinion, I would probably have several suggestions. But let's not talk about it for now.

  


Of course, because the researchers at Stanford hold in the highest regard the opinions of Mr. Martin Hollister, the great narcoleptic tenure professor at the University of Utah. As everyone knows, Salt Lake City located University is just as important as the STANFORD UNIVERSITY, and that's precisely the reason why William CHOSE to study there, instead of being LEFT WITH NO OTHER REASONABLE OPTION since it the only school that promised to cover his accommodation expenses. No, it was just a great school, which only by sheer coincidence conducted no meaningful research. As you do.

  


William made a mental note to remember to look into the possible scholarships. One good project and he could kiss this joke of an academic institution goodbye...

He looked up and saw that the blackboard was now depicting something resembling a 2x2 grid, each window containing a different letter.

"So this what we have here is the so-called 'Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats" analysis, or if you find that a mouthful, 'SWOT' for short. In order to better visualize the process, we'll be using this **nifty** table, which divides those categories in two ways: whether there are positive or negative, and whether they come from the project itself or are influenced by some external factors. Take for example..."

  


_Swot? What an ugly word._

William thought about this problem for a while and came to a conclusion that simultaneously explained his previous pipe-related reservations.

SWOT, PCV...acronyms are just plain terrible. They don't even sound like real words. Just random sounds forced together to represent something that already has a name. What kind of a world does he have to live in, where life is forced to run at such great speeds that there's no longer even time to say words in their entirety. 

Like those sings put in front of Mormon temples.

William, up to that point, had counted 6 Mormon churches on the way from the airport and within a walking distance from the university building. All of them were labeled as "LDS" churches as if writing the whole name was too much of a hustle. 

His pen was already in the process of writing the acronym, one letter under another, helping him document his reasoning. 

**L** was of course short for-" Latter"

 **S** \- Saints

 **D**...

_Wait._

He looked once again at his notes. They consisted of two lines of sentence fragments, a quote from an unrelated poem, and the giant word LSD, written in bold letters on the margin. 

A random person would probably be at least a little bit concerned by that.

But there was a method to his madness. He could spin it.

Maybe there was an actual connection between those two things. They both seemed to be really popular in this city at the time being. So it was not illogical to theorize about a possible correlation.

Underneath the misspelled acronym he added the word "users". Now he was ready to start the documentation.

He looked around the lecture hall, a sea of gray thoughtless faces stretching as far as the eye can see. Some of them were talking to each other, some were noting with a crazed look in their eyes, but most of them seemed rather lifeless, blank. William tried to think of some reliable method using which he would be able to assess which ones of them were definitely crackheads. But then he realized, that wasn't sure how such a person would even behave. He only ever heard second-hand accounts, since fortunately, he didn't have to deal with those things back in his hometown. He decided to postpone his little thought experiment until he gathered some reference material. Just as he thought about it, he could Professor Hollister wrapping up his fascinating lecture.

  


"And now, you all already know how much our school values teamwork since believe me or not, the ability to not make everyone around you tear their hair from their scalp the moment they see you is actually very important in this field. So to start this semester in the spirit of cooperation, in pairs, you are going to create short presentations of **theoretical** business enterprises and analyze them using the SWOT method. The pairs are completely randomized because the boys from our computer science department wanted to test out their "sorting algorithm". Now, this may be just me being old-fashioned, but I can't imagine how using those giant calculators is in any way more convenient than drawing names from a **hat** , but what do I know. Anyway, you can find the list of who's working with who on the bulletin board in the corridor, and before anyone asks, yes, you can switch your partner, but could you at least try to treat each other as actual human beings for once, that would be appreciated. That will be all for today, now go in peace to love and serve the Lord, or whatever you youngsters get up to these days..."

  


William, without a hurry, began putting his stencils and notebook in his bag, carefully observing the unleashed cavalcade of young men in half-assedly tucked-in dress-shirts and with horribly unkept moptops, stampeding toward the exit. There was no reason he would have to follow this frenzied crowd. He had time.

  


When he finally started making his way to the door he made sure to take every step with piety, as if he was trying to apologize to the hardwood floor for the horrors it had to endure. Oh, to be the only advocate for the entire humanity, to rise above the crowd and comprehend the errors of their ways...

  


"Could you hurry up?" The matte voice of Professor Hollister came from the hallway "I need to lock the door."

  


_On second thought, maybe it's better to just stay on the ground...for the time being_ , he thought skipping every two steps, quickly making his way to the door to escape the eagle's wrath. 

  


The crowd that formed around the bulletin board was already dissolving, a soft murmur of introductory conversations filling the corridor. There was only one person still looking at the list, a rather tall fella with an asymmetrical bowl-cut dressed in a methyl-orange, knitted jumper. William waited for a couple of seconds for the guy to walk away, but he wasn't moving. In fact, he was holding his head less than an inch from the paper, completely blocking the view of the list. His eyes were squinting, his face serious as if he had actual trouble reading the words right in front of him. Considering the general intellectual level of this school, William wasn't even surprised. Several more seconds passed and William finally got tired of waiting.

  


"Pardon me?"

He tried to catch the other's attention, but the guy didn't even look at him.

"Well, pardon my astigmatism,"He scoffed, bringing his face even closer to the paper for seemingly no reason other than pure spite. But William wasn't the one to give up too easily. 

"If you're already so immersed in the text, could you just tell me what name is listed next to Afton? It will be at the top," he said, pointing his finger upward with an annoyed look on his face "At least it should be if the alphabetical order is of any concern around here."

The guy turned slowly to him, glaring. So William raised his eyebrows and glared back at him. They stood there for a brief moment just angrily looking at each other. After a while when the other man started scanning the beginning of the list William knew he had emerged victorious from their little stare down. But this victory was short-lived, as the other guy grinned widely with a spiteful glint in his dull eyes. 

"What's so funny If I may ask?"

"You 'may' do whatever you like for all I care. Just don't try to switch your partner with me, 'cause I won't budge." He stepped away from the board but before William could check his name for himself he stopped him by grabbing his shoulder "You've got Emily, by the way." He gave William a strong slap on the back, smiling mockingly "Good luck Aussie boy."

He put his hands in his pockets and walked away unceremoniously.

"I'm sorry, but I am in fact not from-"

He was already gone. William sighed and tried to keep his cool even in face of such blatant slander. Wasting energy for people who only wanted to insult him was completely unnecessary. Especially since he already had one major problem to tackle at the moment. 

  


_Emily? Were there even any women in this class?_

  


William looked around the seemingly empty corridor, hoping to find the only other person who hadn't found their respective partner. Fortunately, he spotted someone facing away from him, leaning against a glass cabinet. From his perspective, he could only see that the person in question had shoulder-length red hair. It was about as much of a good indicator as any, so he walked towards the figure, making sure to take his every step loudly enough for the gal not to get startled. 

"Excuse me, are you Emily by any chance?" He asked, finally reaching the cabinet. Despite his efforts, however, the person visibly flinched and in one spastic movement turned around facing him. 

  


As it turned out, despite possessing the rather unusually long hair, the person was clearly male, or at the very least presented in a way that would inevitably lead to such conclusion. He was definitely shorter than William, with a certain blockiness to his overall posture. This could, in no small part, be attributed to his relatively broad shoulders which were only accentuated by the bottle-green jacket he was wearing, making his torso almost a perfect inverted trapezoid. But the part that really made the man look absolutely peculiar was his face-it had this rare quality of both possessing a clear, maybe even defined jawline while still somehow seeming clay-like, almost as if it was sculpted out of cheap, glossy Plasticine. And, as if to add insult to injury, it was also littered with discolored freckles and haunted by the remaining threat of teenage acne, which paired with the shy suggestion of stubble on his chin created a picture of someone who got completely ripped off by the puberty department and never got a refund.

He also wore a pair of orange-tinted, round glasses, but those only make him look like some sort of a bug. Which kind exactly, William wasn't sure yet, but this wasn't the most pressing matter at the moment. 

So, as it was already mentioned, the strange guy turned like an alarmed ferret, stuffing something quickly into his pocket, William couldn't see what it was exactly but it looked like a white handkerchief. 

"Yeah?"He finally muttered straightening his posture, which in his case apparently meant trying to hunch just a little bit less than usual. 

William took a deep breath to restrain himself from making any unnecessary comments, but before he could even open his mouth he was already interrupted with a million-dollar question.

"You expected a girl, right?"

"What? No, of course not-" William tried to sound surprised by such notion, but the other man could see right through him.

"Don't worry man, I get that more times than you can imagine." The guy extended his hand in William's and direction and tapped his shoulder lightly "Actually, it's kinda a funny story. So, my great grandmother, right?" He leaned back against the glass cabinet, crossing his legs, holding his left hand up the air, as if he was trying to set the scene for his random digression "The year is 185-something, she comes to Ellie Island to, you know, register and all that junk, and they ask her for her name, so she says "O'Riley Emily" because apparently, she had thought that she should say the surname first because it's more important or something. I don't know, maybe the guy writing this was tipsy that day and thought she had said: "Oh, Riley Emily", but from that day forward all of her documents listed her name as "Riley" and her last name as "Emily", and she never bothered to correct that. Weird, huh?" He pouted his cheeks and looked at the ceiling, lost in thought, and continued "Actually, you know what, now that I said it out loud it seems a little...contrived, so maybe it's just a stupid story my uncle made up to tell during Christmas dinners. Guess I'll never know".

He looked back at the dumb-founded William, who had been patiently listening to his weird anecdote. Several seconds of intense silence passed before the guy finally came back from wherever his mind went in moments like those.

"I'm sorry, what was the question?"

I...haven't..asked any...?William said, looking both sides confused.

"You don't sound sure" The guy tilted his head, looking visibly concerned "Is there something bothering you?"

William forced his lips to stay shut, forming a perfectly straight line. This whole country up to this point had seemed like an elaborate exercise to test his patience, and he was on the verge of throwing in the towel. But at least the mantis guy seemed unbothered...mantis! That was the bug that he reminded him of. _A big, awkward...absent-minded...mantis._

"Anyway, the name's Henry." He said, extending his hand toward William. He took it probably a little too firmly and shook it. Henry's hand was very cold. 

"William Afton."

"Nice accent." Henry smiled and retracted his hand, placing it on his hip and looking William up and down "Where are you from?"

William exhaled loudly, hating the fact that all those weirdos felt the need to comment on his dialect as if he was some eccentric foreigner from God knows where.

"Essex..." He finally muttered, looking straight at the floor. To his surprise, he heard a slight chuckle, which prompted him to look back at the man.

"Ok, so you're not the one to beat around the bush, huh?" Henry looked visibly embarrassed, for no obvious reason. "But you know what, we can talk about this, we're both adults."

William found himself both annoyed, but in some sense also morbidly curious about what the actual hell was this guy talking about.

_On that note, shouldn't the phrase be "beat about the bush-_

Henry scratched the back of his head, averting his eyes like a flustered teenager.

"I mean, come to think about it, we all came from sex one way or another...and there's nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, I think-"

_Jesus-_

_Bloody-_

_Fucking-_

_**God-** _

"Ess-ex! Like the county? In the East of England region?"

"Oh my god, sorry, I'm such an idiot." Henry brought his palm to his forehead with too much energy, almost knocking his glasses off his nose. William somehow prevented himself from nodding approvingly at the notion "Well, that at least explains your..."

"My WHAT exactly?" William couldn't contain his annoyance anymore.

"Nevermind." Henry backed away on one foot, threatening to lose his balance. He avoided it by shifting his weight at the last possible moment, which he then tried to hide by doing a whole 180-turn, facing now away from William. "Anyway, it was nice to meet you." He said casually and started walking away even more casually in the closest approximation of a straight line he could probably manage at that moment. William was left dumbfounded but he managed to stop him before he had left the corridor.

"Where are you- what about the project?"

"Right, right, the project..." Henry audibly hissed and turn back on his heels, his brows furrowed "Listen, man, I'd really love to discuss it right now, but I'm not actually feeling all that well, you know?" He put his hands on William's shoulders, probably to keep his balance."So maybe we could, do it tomorrow?"

  


William didn't say anything but took the other's hands off his shoulders and reached into his messenger bag, taking out his fountain pen and his notebook. He rested the notebook against the cabinet, furiously scribbling down his message. When he was finished he tore the entire page from the notebook, folded it, and handed it aggressively to Henry with the coldest stare he could manage.

  


"Here, this is my address and the hour I'll be expecting you tomorrow morning. Preferably in a more..." there were so many words he wanted to say to him "...communicative state."

"Of course my lord." For some reason, Henry smiled dopily and swung his arm while lowering his head in a motion resembling a bow. Of course, he once again almost lost his balance with it, but William was secretly hoping for the karma to finally do its thing to that dumbass "I'll be awaiting you at dawn, in my finest carriage." He added, grinning like a fucking idiot.

"Ok, I'm officially done with this illuminating conversation." William put his things back in his back and stepped closer toward the other, grabbing his shoulder and staring straight into those obnoxious glasses "Get some rest. And just to be perfectly clear, this isn't some friendly advice."He lowered his voice significantly "It's a warning."

Without looking back he started walking away from Henry. He could hear him mumbling something to himself, but it made about as much sense as everything else he had said.

"God save the Queen! Or maybe, God save me for a change! Jesus Christ, why is everything so bright all of a sudden..."

When William finally left the corridor he leaned against a wall and took out his notebook once again and flipped to the page he had been noting on that day. He made a small adjustment by adding exactly one tally mark. So, just to reiterate:

**PLANNING= CRUCIAL**

**CHARITY= GOOD**

**LSD USERS - I**

**Author's Note:**

> And so the idiocy begins  
> But just to be clear, it all leads to something, and hopefully, I'll be able to get to the later parts of the story in the future, so for now, I'm making my way backward to work from there. It's mostly planned out, so the only thing I need is enough time. But for now, let's just forget about the angst and just let those morons be morons in relative peace
> 
> Also, please remember that William's perspective is unreliable af, but it's also hilarious to write because it mostly involves coming up with so many ways to degrade and belittle every single thing on the planet, while desperately trying to pretend you're some enlightened intellectual who's just misunderstood by THOSE MINDLESS DRONES
> 
> It will be updated in the near future I hope. Anyway, enjoy I guess


End file.
